"Well, law me, Mary--don't I know that? Hasn't Freddie told me time and again how Grant used to fight for Freddie when he was a little boy and the big boys plagued him. Grant whipped the whole school for teasing a little half-witted boy once--did you know that?" Mary Adams shook her head. "Well, he did, and--well now, isn't that nice. I can see just how he feels!" And she could. Never lived a more sympathetic soul than Rhoda. And as she rocked she said: "Of course, if that's the reason--law me, Mary, you never can tell how these children are going to turn out. Why, I tell John--" "And the other reason is, Rhoda, that he is earning two dollars a day as a carpenter's helper, and since Kenyon came we seem to be miserably hard pushed for money." Mary Adams stopped and then went on as one carefully choosing her words: "And since Margaret has gone to board over at the other side of the school district, and we don't have her board money--why of course--" "Why of course," echoed Mrs. Kollander, "of course. I tell John he's been in a county office now twenty years, drawing all the way from a thousand to three thousand a year--and what have we got to show for it? I scrimp and pinch and save, and John does too--but law me--it seems like the way times are--" Amos Adams, standing at the door, heard her and cut in: "I was talking the other night with George Washington about the times, and they're coming around all right." The man fumbled his sandy beard, closed his eyes as if to remember something and went on: "Let's see, he wrote: 'Peas and potatoes preserve the people,' and the next day, everything in the market dropped but peas and potatoes." He nodded a wise head. "They think that planchette is nonsense, but how do they account for coincidences like that! And now tell me some news for the _Tribune_." The two sat talking well into the twilight and when Rhoda pulled up her chair to the supper table, the editor's notebook was full. Grant appeared, an ox-shouldered, red-haired, bass-voiced boy with ham-like hands; Jasper came in from school full of the town's adventure into coal and the industries, and his chatter trickled into the powerful but slowly spoken insistence of Mrs. Kollander's talk and was lost and swept finally into silence. After supper Grant retired to a book from the Sea-side Library, borrowed of Mr. Brotherton from stock--"Sesame and Lilies" was its title. Jasper plunged into his bookkeeping studies and by the wood stove in the sitting-room Rhoda Kollander held her levee until bedtime sent her home.